In the book, Ardern sheds light on what it’s like to lead the country as a new mother (she was only the second world leader to have a baby while in office) while navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, a live-streamed terrorist attack in Christchurch and a devastating volcanic eruption.

The memoir, described by The Guardian as “an emotionally rich and candid read”, is one of four finalists in the awards’ General Non-Fiction category.

Naomi Arnold’s Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa also made the cut, along with Peta Carey’s The Hollows Boys: A Story of Three Brothers & the Fiordland Deer Recovery Era; and This Compulsion in Us by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā).

Philip Matthews, the awards’ General Non-Fiction category convenor of judges, says the shortlisted books give honest impressions of Aotearoa and its people.

“The final four were elevated by artful writing and personal reflections that also offered profound insights. Each came as a surprise, even to those who thought they knew the story,” he adds. 

The four General Non-Fiction finalists are joined on the shortlist by a further 12 writers, across the genres of fiction, poetry, history, botany, art and te ao Māori. These 16 finalists were selected by panels of specialist judges from a longlist of 44 books across four categories: fiction, poetry, illustrated non-fiction and general non-fiction.

Previous winner Catherine Chidgey is in the running for the awards’ $65,000 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction with her latest work of fiction, The Book of Guilt. She has taken out the award twice before – the only author to have done so – for The Wish Child in 2017 and The Axeman’s Carnival in 2023.  

Also contesting the country’s richest writing prize is Ingrid Horrocks with All Her Lives; Laura Vincent (Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāpuhi) with Hoods Landing; and Sam Mahon with How to Paint a Nude.

The awards’ fiction category convenor of judges, Craig Cliff, says of the four finalists’ books: “You laugh, you shudder, you are pulled along by character and voice and plot. Set in different time periods and across the globe, these four authors speak directly to the contemporary concerns of New Zealanders.”

The fiction panel will again be joined by an overseas judge when it makes its deliberations about the winner. This year’s judge is Leslie Hurtig, the artistic director of the Vancouver Writers Fest and a respected Canadian literary juror.

The finalists in the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry are Anna Jackson for Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts; Erik Kennedy for Sick Power Trip; Sophie van Waardenberg for No Good; and Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) for Black Sugarcane.

“As judges we were filled with imagination and excitement, and we were also torn by the reasoning, culture, storytelling and language of the high-quality poetry collections in this year’s submissions,” says category convenor of judges Daren Kamali.

The authors up for the BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction are Charlotte Macdonald for Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and Across the British Empire; Philip Garnock-Jones for He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers; Sarah Farrar for Mark Adams: A Survey – He Kohinga Whakaahua; and Elizabeth Cox for Mr Ward's Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street.

The category’s convenor of judges Lauren Gutsell says, “These four titles each bring new understandings of their subject matter, not only through research and narrative but through photography, artwork, illustration, and mapping. Each book makes a notable contribution to our understanding of our country.”

Nicola Legat, spokesperson for the New Zealand Book Awards Trust Te Ohu Tiaki i Te Rau Hiringa, says this year’s shortlisted books are fresh, reflective, and pack a punch.

“It’s a very exciting finalist list – 16 titles that readers of any genre will enjoy. They have been beautifully crafted by their authors and produced with great care by their publishers. The Book Awards Trust salutes them all.”